No confidence playing sports
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Anonymous
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My 6 year old has no confidence playing any sports in front of anyone outside of home, except kicking ball, he is not willing to try baseball, basketball, swimming, tennis or etc. He has mild low muscle tone, and his motor coordination is not good. He knows about it, and he is concerned other people laugh at him. I can tell he is jealous of other kids playing sports, and I can tell he wants to join them to play. I have encouraged him, but it is no use. He keeps telling me that he does not know how to play, so he does not want to play it. Well, we need to give him a push.
Since he is fine with soccer, we have already signed him up with soccer spring camp. The reasons that he is fine with soccer because He joined soccer class for a year at 18 months old, so he has more confidence in that. Due to covid, I stopped many sport classes ever since. For basketball, I am undecided between these options. Option 1) sign up a community membership, go playing at family basketball time at indoor gym masked, option 2) find a NON-COMPETITIVE basketball class for him to play if anyone knows any in MoCo, best if there are some really beginner level or Option 3) wait till weather get warmer, we play basketball outdoor unmasked on concrete ground e.g. school or playground. Which one is better? We sometimes play kid basketball hoop at home, and his skill level is still working on bouncing basketball entry level. He is skinny and average height with not much strength. |
Anonymous
| Let me guess? You were a former D1 athlete and an IVY league school? |
Anonymous
| I’d focus on family activities at that age. If you force it, you may turn him off to team sports altogether, and it sounds like you don’t want to do that. So play catch, horse, wiffleball, do a fun run race, go to the playground, etc. Those things will affect his athletic skills more than sitting around on a tball field anyway! When he’s ready to jump in, he’ll have developed his athleticism and he won’t hate the idea due to forced participation. |
Anonymous
Option 3 isn't likely to work well for a 6 year old with low muscle tone because the playground hoops are adult height (unless you happen to live near a playground with an adjustable hoop). You will want to play on a hoop that can be lowered. |
Anonymous
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i might sound a bit mean here. He is six. Relax. He is very young. Is he diagnosed with low muscle tone or is this your impression? The reason I ask is that once again you seem overly concerned with your kid and sports. NONE of my kids played sports at six (I have three). We tried with some pee wee soccer leagues, gymnastics, etc. and it was a disaster for all of them. They were too young and honestly not ready. What we did do was hit playgrounds a LOT. Everything was a game - how far can you make it across the bars, we would time an obstacle course, we played tag as a family, etc. We would wear them out. We also climbed trees and boulders, and went on hikes. No organized sports after a few disasters. We did do swim lessons from age 3 up because that is just s life skill. At seven we forced them on to a swim team and after some hiccups they loved it. They key is a summer team that promotes friends and doing all the social stuff. Focus on that. Now I have three tweens, they are all excellent swimmers (club swimmers too), they run track and cross country and are top third or higher, one does gymnastics, and two play basketball (but they had zero interest until they were 9 and we bought a hoop for the outdoors that was lower). They would all be considered jocks at this point. Stop rushing it. Get you kid physically active. Make it fun. |
Anonymous
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you kid is 6, what were you doing at 6?
a friend played professional sports and was at his kids game with his dad (The grandfather) the kids dad was frustrated by how the kid wasn't working hard and the grandfather turned to his son who played professionally and said you think you were that good at his age and always did things right? That perspective really changed the former pro athletes mind. |
Anonymous
| Maybe he is just not good at ball sports? There are other sports (or arts) that focus on the whole body and are less popular -- gymnastics, ice skating, ballet, running. Maybe one of these would appeal to him? The key is to get him moving doing something he enjoys. If you push him to do something he hates and is terrible at, he will lose more confidence and be even less likely to be physically active. |
Anonymous
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I would focus only on swimming. It's an essential life skill and if he is low tone, it will help him build necessary muscle and core strength.
I wouldn't push the team sports. He's only 6! |
Anonymous
| remember he is 6. He is not fully formed, and there is time for growth! It sounds to me that you are more concerned with the low muscle tone aspect and are freaking out that he won't be good at sports. Well if you pressure him and force him into doing sports he does not like or feels anxiety on your part about it, he won't! All low tone is lower tension of a muscle at rest. To compensate for this, you will have to engage him in activities to strengthen- think wheelbarrow walking, monkey bars, tug of war. Swimming is great to develop coordination and strength and has the added benefit of no ball...once he gets a little more confident, see what he gravitates to. In the meantime, have him hit balloons with baseball bats or tennis rackets, play catch or target games with bean bags. Soccer is great and if the other kids razz him about not being good (which would be ridiculous considering the wide range of players) just say, well, maybe not YET...but with practice and my help, if you want it, you can get better...did I ever tell you about when you first learned how to walk...? |
Anonymous
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He is only 6, OP. Let the kid choose the sport, if any!
When did sports become mandatory?? OML. |
Anonymous
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This sounds really normal to me. None of my kids had any confidence at sports at that age. They are all tweens/young teens now and 2 of the 3 are very athletic/confident on sports teams. The third isn’t really into sports but it is more of a preference thing. Just to assure you that age 6 is not predictive of anything either way.
It is fine not to play any team or organized sports at age 6. FWIW 2 of mine learned so much, and built so much confidence from, a martial arts class at that age. It was a wonderful and low pressure sport/exercise for them, and focused a lot on confidence and basic body movements/coordination. All types of kids in the classes. Something like a beginner gymnastics or tumbling class may be similar. Mine also loved just playing with DH or me at that age, and we worked on moving and building confidence that way. Sports at age 6 mean very little. Our goal was expose them to many different sports (only one required was swimming instruction) |
Anonymous
| 6 is so little. My son didn’t play any team sports at that age and hated even the swim lessons we forced him to attend. Over the years he tried many different sports. Some he liked. Some he didn’t. He is playing two in high school and they are sports he didn’t pick up until 5th grade. That’s when he dropped the other rec sports and decided to try new ones, which he ended up liking and was good at. . You can’t base anything on what they do or their attitude at 6. |
Anonymous
| ^ I would ask him what friends at school play and start with that. If he doesn’t know, find out whatever rec league is close to you which will likely have local kids. That’s what helped my own children develop an interest in early elementary. |
Anonymous
| My 7 year old is not too dissimilar and it looks like he has some anxiety about competition and team sports. That's fine. He goes to the playground, rides bikes, etc. I'm trying to introduce him to less competitive sports that are confidence-building. We took him to a tae kwon do trial class. I'm planning to take him to a climbing wall in the next couple of weeks to try that, and he's interested in American Ninja Warrior so we're trying a ninja gym. For camps, he asked to do an outdoor camp with hiking, etc. He's doing a weeklong ninja and tumbling camp. There are so many things to try that are not baseball/soccer/basketball etc. that are all still sports. They have plenty of time to figure it out. |
Anonymous
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Hoop Ed does beginner baller classes for young kids that are truly beginner level.
Here’s a question though: you say “we’re working on.” What if any of this stuff is FUN for your kid? We signed my kid up for baseball because everybody in the neighborhood played baseball. He was terrible at it and hated it. We reconciled ourselves to our kid being very unathletic. We signed him up for soccer, and we were shocked to learn that our 6 year old didn’t actually hate sports as we had thought. He was bad but not terrible, and he had fun. We signed him up for basketball as a second grader, and he was terrible at it, but liked it. By middle school, he was at the park every day and when we’d tell him to come home after many hours because it was dark/raining/snowing, he’d repeatedly beg for 10 more minutes. By high school he was playing on his school team and a highly competitive AAU team. I’d advise you to find a sport/environment/team that your kid enjoys. Also, teach Kim the rules and skills. Some parents seem to expect kids to just magically know how to play, and of course they don’t. They need to learn, and it takes a long time. NBA players sometimes make mistakes that 4th graders are taught not to make (e.g. inbounding the ball right under the basket). |